On May 7, 1945, just before midnight, Private First Class Domenic Mozzetta of the United States Army’s 97th Division shot at a German sniper near Klenovice, Czechoslovakia. He couldn’t know it at the time, but he had just fired the last official bullet in World War II’s European theater of operations.
The Japanese would finally surrender in August of that year, bringing the entire war – which cost more than 80 million lives if the aftershocks of disease and famine are taken into account – to an end.
The silencing of the guns sounded the death knell for Europe’s African empire and fuelled the wave of decolonialization that swept across the continent from the mid-1950s through the 1960s.
When war broke out in Europe in 1939, the French army recruited around 300,000 North African and 197,000 West African men, with more being pulled into the conflict as it spread around the globe. On top of this, nearly 400,000 African soldiers from Britain’s colonies were called up to fight.
British units from the Gambia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast (now Ghana) comprised the 81st and 82nd West African Divisions and the famous King’s African Rifles (KAR) was made up of men from Kenya, Uganda, Nyasaland (now Malawi), Somaliland (now Somalia) and Tanganyika (now Tanzania).
<div id="attachment_3594" style="width: 215px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3594" class="size-medium wp-image-3594" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/GettyImages-138601664-205x300.jpg" alt="" width="205" height="300" />UNITED KINGDOM &#8211; JANUARY 01: BRITISH OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH N.K.1528 (Ministry of Information) (See companion picture K.1528) Corporal of a Kenya Battalion of the King&#8217;s African Rifles. A corporal of the 5th Battalion of the King&#8217;s African Rifles wearing drill order &#8211; khaki shorts, blue jersey with yellow chevrons and a felt hat introduced into the Colonial Forces about 1938, similar to those worn by Gurkha regiments. Formerly the Askaris (soldiers) of the KAR wore red tarbushes on drill or ceremonial parades, marching order and fighting order, the hat was a small round khaki affair like a pill-box, with a neck protection cover. (Photo by Planet News Archive/SSPL/Getty Images)</div>
More than 90,000 West Africans played a crucial role in driving the Japanese out of Burma, helping stave off an invasion of British India, and the KAR fought the Italians in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), the Vichy French in Madagascar and the Japanese in Burma. French West African soldiers, fighting with the Free French forces, invaded Sicily and Italy.
White South Africans and Rhodesians (now Zimbabwe) fought alongside their Allied peers but, with the exception of the Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR) which fought with distinction in Burma, their non-white counterparts tended to be relegated to auxiliary roles and did not face combat.
When the war ended, an immediate programme of ‘whitening’ the war effort began. The fact that Europe had been forced to use African fighting forces was a source of great discomfort for many Europeans who were, to put it mildly, discomfited by the idea of black men killing white.
As John Morrow, a University of Georgia historian, points out in his paper Black Africans in World War II: The Soldiers’ Stories, “African soldiers proved to be highly capable troops in… difficult conditions” and despite high levels of illiteracy were able to fight independently of their white commanders, striking fear into the hearts of their enemies.
Yet after the war, “a politically expedient policy of ‘whitening’” began. French leader Charles de Gaulle replaced black soldiers with French conscripts and partisans – but only after stripping them of their uniforms and weapons and grouping them with African POWs being liberated from German camps.
This was actively supported by British and American leaders. Brave African soldiers who fought alongside the British, especially in Burma, were denied the ultimate military honor of the Victoria Cross.
These soldiers, many of whom had fought with great courage and distinction on foreign battlefields, returned home after 1945 to the reality that once the war was won, their colonial rulers wanted to revert to their old ways, breeding resentment and distrust.
In 2009, a BBC documentary team tracked down some of Africa’s forgotten wartime heroes to hear their stories and, even though the war had been over for 64 years by then, the fact that their contributions had not been adequately acknowledged still rankled. It also found that, having fought alongside white soldiers, any sense that whites were in some way superior was challenged by their battlefield experiences.
“Initially, I saw the white man as someone better than me. But after the war, I considered him an equal,” former infantryman Dauda Kafanchan told the BBC.
Morrow says that “British and French attempts to omit, diminish, or discredit the achievements of African soldiers stemmed from their intent to ignore or limit African demands for equality and independence, in the same fashion that white Americans’ refusal to acknowledge the combat service of African-American soldiers was intended to keep the latter ‘in their place’ and forestall the granting of equal rights to black citizens under the law.”
But this wouldn’t be allowed to stand. As historian Tom Hartley wrote in Sheffield University’s ‘New Histories’ magazine, “the old colonial powers Britain and France had won the war but lost the battle – their statuses as the biggest names on the world stage was now over.”
Having fought to preserve freedom across Europe, it became very difficult for proponents of colonialism to continue to support the oppression of Africans.
“These moral issues, along with the financial cost of propping up an empire with Europe so devastated, led to a movement away from colonialism.”
This movement was supported by the Atlantic Charter, signed by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, which spelled out their justification for going to war with Germany and its allies, became a rallying point for African nationalists and gave them a powerful political tool.
Clause 3 of the Charter states that “[the British and American governments and people] respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.”
In The Saylor Foundation’s World War II and the Road to Independence, this “was intended to apply only to the European countries which were overrun by German Nazi forces [but] Africans appropriated it and used it for their own purposes,” leading to the “vast politicization of the African masses.”
Rather than arguing for better treatment, less discrimination and greater opportunities, African nationalists were now demanding a complete end to colonial rule.
In 1945, when the fifth Pan-African Congress took place in London, Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta, the future leaders of independent Ghana and Kenya, stood up and demanded an end to British colonialism.
In an essay entitled ‘To what extent was World War Two the catalyst or cause of British Decolonisation’, hosted on his Active History website, teacher and academic Russell Tarr argues that the war did so much damage to the British economy that that the Empire was forced to break up.
At the time, as The Saylor Foundation and others note, European powers had no intention of granting independence to their colonies – they thought it was too soon for self-governance. Africans, in their view, needed more training and education before they could be trusted to rule themselves.
In fact, Herbert Morrison, the post-war Labour Party Deputy Prime Minister, said that giving the colonies independence would be “like giving a child of ten a latch-key, a bank account and a shotgun.” The fact that the British wanted the process to be slow had more to do with the economic benefits of an almost endless supply of cheap raw materials than any inherent concern for the wellbeing of their African subjects, but the gradual change was never going to be acceptable to battle-weary and hardened veterans.
While the history of colonial and post-colonial Africa has generally been well recorded, it is only in recent years that the role that Africans played in World War II, and the subsequent impact that this would have on the continent in the wake of the conflict, is getting the attention that it deserves.
These forgotten soldiers are at last being properly remembered – not only for the significant part they played in defeating the scourge of fascism but also for their role in winning independence for their native lands.

How A White Man’s War Gave Africans Back Their Continent

Alex Reith had just celebrated his 22nd birthday when he landed his glider in Normandy in northern France on D-Day, June 6, 1944. It may have been a dangerous day for his first taste of World War 2, but it was far from his worst. That was to come a few months later in Operation Market Garden – the parachute drop that turned into a slaughter and inspired the Hollywood film  A Bridge Too Far.
It was a glum and grey afternoon when Alex Reith flew his glider – with five troops, a jeep and a field gun on board – across the English Channel, towards Normandy’s Sword Beach swarming with invading troops.
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Although the 22-year-old British-born staff sergeant was aware of the scale of the operation, little did he know that D-Day would go down as the largest amphibious military assault in history. Some 195,701 servicemen took part in the operation, as well as 23,400 parachute units and many thousands of other troops carried by 7,000 ships and vessels and 11,590 aircraft and thousands of gliders.
Reith remembers his journey from England to France as if it were yesterday. The view from high above the English Channel is etched into his memory. Excitement saturates his voice as he recalls the 150-kilometer flight.
“As we were making our way across in our matchbox, we could see the thousands of vessels, boats, battleships and God knows what else below us which were headed for Normandy. We didn’t just catch a glimpse of the armada. No, we had a panoramic view of it! It was an absolutely one time fantastic sight!” Reith recalls, explaining that glider planes were called matchboxes because they were made of plywood, often manufactured in furniture factories.
Eventually, Reith’s glider touched down near Ranville, a small town east of Sword beach.
“It must have been sometime between 4PM and 5PM. It was over 70 years ago, you know, so I am not too sure about the exact time,” he says with a chuckle.
“The landing was fairly unremarkable. Normandy is flat. The only difficulties were the trees and the anti-glider poles the Germans had installed. There were plenty of those around. We were fortunate enough to land in an open field, together with some 20 other gliders.”
Before unloading the field gun and jeep, Reith did some surveillance to see if the coast was clear.
“There was quite a bit of gunfire and smoke, and there were bombs going off everywhere,” he recalls.
“After that, we settled down and had our army rations – which were quite dreadful. Then we went to sleep, taking turns on guard duty.”
Shortly after landing, Reith and a number of glider pilots made their way back to the beach, while the rest stayed behind.
“The duty of a glider was to land safely and accurately in enemy territory, often under very difficult circumstances, and then to take part in any required action on the ground, offensive or defensive. You have to understand that we were not pilots belonging to the Royal Air Force (RAF). We were soldiers, just soldiers – like any other soldier,” Reith explains. “The fact that we were able to fly gliders didn’t make a difference. It wasn’t a very glamorous job.”
The journey back to the beach was tough.
“It was quiet, yet there were all sorts of reminders of a massive battle. It had been truly a dreadful two days,” he says.
“There were dead Germans all over the place, as well as abandoned field guns and deserted vehicles. Interestingly enough, we did not see one single injured or dead Allied soldier. They had already been cleared.”
Reith recalls how he and his colleagues heard machinegun fire as they passed a small village. They decided to investigate.
“We found a lone German in a church, firing at targets outside. He was causing quite a bit of damage and chaos,” says Reith.
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“We gave him a few warnings, and asked him to surrender so we could take him to our base as a prisoner of war. He replied by shooting some more. We decided that something had to be done. A shell wiped him out. In a way, I have always admired this man. Despite everything, he decided to go his own way after the German defeat. He was quite a brave man, I thought. And then he was gone.”
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Market Garden Horror
Once on the beach, Reith and his crew were sent back home, after which their training started for the next offensive: the infamous Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands.
“That was a horrific operation from a glider pilot point of view. Well, it was a horrific operation from so many different points of view,” Reith says.
“We lost some 500 glider pilots during that mission, and thousands of other troops too.”
Operation Market Garden took place between September 17 and September 25, 1944, in and around the eastern Dutch cities of Arnhem, Eindhoven, and Nijmegen. The assault involved tens of thousands of British and American troops behind enemy lines as an ‘airborne carpet’, including 20,000 paratroopers and 13,500 gliders. Thousands of tons of equipment and vehicles were also dropped.
The troops’ objective was to capture eight strategic bridges on and near the Dutch-German border, while Allied tanks would advance on the ground. The aim: the liberation of a large part of the Netherlands, after which the Allied forces would cross the Rhine and bring Germany swiftly to its knees. It didn’t work. Two SS Panzer divisions near Arnhem turned the largest airborne military operation in history into a fiasco that claimed more than 16,000 lives.
“It was an absolute disaster, and a hopeless battle. The Panzer division, along with a battalion of cadets, prevented any Allied advance from Arnhem. British and American soldiers, paratroopers, the infantry, and airborne troops were decimated, as they had the river behind them and the Germans in front of them,” Reith recalls with emotion in his voice.
“I was lucky. I had landed in Nijmegen and not in Arnhem. Nijmegen was difficult, but not as difficult and horrendous as the situation was at the other side of the river.”
After Operation Market Garden, Reith was sent back to England to prepare for the next operation, in April 1945 in Italy’s Po Valley. But the assault was cancelled at the very last minute, after an Allied recce had shown the valley was riddled with Germans.
“Not wanting another Arnhem, the mission was aborted,” Reith says, who was in Sicily at the time.
“That was the end of it. Soon afterwards, the war in Europe came to an end. We celebrated, we drank too much, and then we were taken back to England by a troopship. That was that. It was a bit of an anti-climax, really.”
Reith was discharged from the army a year later, a war veteran at the tender age of 24. He remembers how lost he was during those first few post-war years.
“I [joined] the army when I was 17, after leaving school. This meant that I didn’t have any relevant experience,” he says. “Not many people will say this, but when I came out of the army, I was lost. In the army we were fed, clothed, sheltered; we were given a bit of spending money. There I was, 24 years old and thrown into the labor market with no experience or skills. Most jobs had already been snapped up so it was very difficult. It took me quite a while to find my way around.”
Reith eventually ended up in sales, which he took to.
“By the time I came to South Africa in 1970, I was a successful sales manager,” he says.
So why South Africa and retirement near the beach at Margate in KwaZulu-Natal?
“I had a stepbrother here and my daughters had moved to South Africa with their husbands. When the first grandchild came, my wife insisted we move too.”
When he was invited to the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings, he didn’t hesitate.
“I was treated like royalty and thanks to the South African Air Force Association (SAAFA), I had a sponsored trip – with a first-class ticket donated by British Airways,” he says.
While there were quite a few veterans at the ceremony, only seven glider pilots were there.
“Most of us were over 90, except for one young chap who was 89,” Reith says with a smile. “I didn’t know any of them. It was a bit disappointing in a way. The two gliders I am in touch with – one who lives in Australia and one in Wales – were not well enough to travel.”
“Apart from them and 2,000 to 3,000 troops, all in their best dress, there was an enormous crowd – mainly French people who wanted to extend their gratitude for the liberation,” he says.
“It was quite something, and at times totally emotional. My eyes were brimmed with tears more than once.”
“The most emotional moment was when I was among the gravestones, thousands and thousands of them, looking for a white cross with the name of a comrade fallen during D-Day,” he says before falling silent for a few seconds.
“It was a reminder of how lucky I had been. I survived D-Day, I survived Market Garden, and I lived long enough to attend the commemoration of D-Day’s 70th anniversary. I am a very lucky guy.”

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